Lightning scales

Version 0.27: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A set of scales fashioned into armour for a naga's lower body. Faintly crackling with electricity, they have been enchanted to allow their wearer to slither at almost a human's pace.

the +6 lightning scales

+6 barding

Running ego (-10% movement delay)
rElec

Desirability

The lightning scales provide excellent defense, an uncommon resistance, and one of the only sources of increased movement speed available to nagas and palentongas.

Without other bonuses to movement speed, nagas will still move slightly slower than the average character, but that's still a significant improvement over their base movement speed -- the simple addition of Swiftness will allow them to finally move faster than average. Palentongas, meanwhile, will gain the permanent ability to run at above-average speed, granting them all the benefits that entails.

Followers of Cheibriados should avoid this item, as that god forbids hasty items like this.

History

• Prior to 0.26, the lightning scales were explicitly intended for nagas to wear.
• Prior to 0.13, this artefact reduced movement delay by 2, but only had a +3 enchantment bonus to AC. Significantly, this meant that Swiftness combined with the scales would give a naga slightly above-average movement speed.
• The lightning scales were added in 0.10.